Resilient storm pipes: a multi-stage decision support system

Abstract

North America’s infrastructure, in general, and stormwater system, as a crucial component of our urban infrastructure, are in dire condition states that require attention and, in some cases, urgent intervention. According to the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE), the stormwater system received a condition state “D+”. Even though existing management systems for storm pipes optimize the timing of maintenance and replacement aiming at improving the overall storm pipes’ network condition, they ignored the effect of urban growth and climate change (i.e. intense and frequent rainfall cause flooding) on the pipes’ deterioration. Thus, this paper presents a scheduling decision-making framework that opts at optimizing the pipes’ replacement decisions to increase their resiliency while considering the annual expenditures, urban growth and its’ future impact on the demand. To demonstrate the system’s functionality, it was deployed on the storm pipes of Kindersley in Saskatchewan, Canada. The results showed that $300,000 a year was enough to meet the city’s condition and flow demand–capacity goals, enhance their average condition from 33% to 63% and drop the flow demand–capacity to 64%. Furthermore, replacements’ breakdown analysis indicated that longer analysis periods enhance the system’s capability in capturing the long-term impact of the decisions.